System and Method for Performing Parity Checks in Disk Storage Systems

1. A system for maintaining cyclic redundancy check (“CRC”) protection of XOR'ed data sectors, comprising: a register that is initialized with a non-zero seed value used for generating sector CRC values; and logic for combining CRC values of at least two sectors and storing a result of the combination modified with a non-zero seeded CRC value.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein CRC data of a sector is XORed with CRC data of another sector.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the logic for combining CRC values is XOR logic.

4. A disk controller that maintains cyclic redundancy check (“CRC”) protection of XOR'ed data sectors, comprising: a register that is initialized with a non-zero seed value used for generating sector CRC values; and logic for combining CRC values of at least two sectors and storing a result of the combination modified with a non-zero seeded CRC value.

5. The controller of claim 4 , wherein CRC data of a sector is XORed with CRC data of another sector.

6. The controller of claim 5 , wherein the logic for combining CRC values is XOR logic.

7. A method for maintaining CRC protection of XOR'ed data sectors, comprising: determining a CRC value (CRC′ A ) for a first sector as calculated with a seed value; determining a CRC value (CRC′ B ) for a second sector as calculated with a seed value; combining the CRC value of the first sector calculated without a seed value (CRC A ) with the CRC value of the first sector calculated with a seed value (CRC′ A ); and combining the result with CRC′ A and CRC′ B .